Days after the German Army captured Kiev, Ukraine, the bloodiest shooting massacre of the Holocaust took place on the outskirts of that city. Over the course of two days in September 1941, Einsatzgruppen and Security Police commandos slaughtered more than 33,000 of Kiev's Jews at a ravine called Babi Yar.

When a series of explosions and fires in Kiev killed many German soldiers and destroyed army headquarters, Jews were blamed. In retaliation, German authorities posted a sign announcing a supposed "resettlement" of the city's Jews. Under threat of death, more than 30,000 were marched to the Jewish cemetery. From there they were marched in small groups to Babi Yar.

Stripped of all clothing, the trembling Jews were led into the ravine. Ordered to lie down, each was shot in the back of the head. The massacre continued uninterruptedly. New victims were forced to lie on those already dead. Corpses stacked up in layers. A survivor recalled being miraculously untouched by the bullets but, clutching her son to her naked body, fell under "a heap of warm, bloody bodies. The bodies of old men rested on the bodies of children, who lay on the bodies of their dead mothers." Commander Paul Blobel later attempted to obliterate all traces of the massacre.
Photo: Archive Photos